


Another City Goes By In The Night

by Samunderthelights



Series: Drarropoly : 2020 [16]
Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Angst, Boys In Love, Character Death, Don't copy to another site, Drarropoly: Founders Edition - A Drarry Game/Fest, Falling In Love, Illnesses, Insecurity, M/M, Nervousness, POV Draco Malfoy, Regret, Reminiscing, Unhappy Ending
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-04
Updated: 2021-01-04
Packaged: 2021-03-15 01:42:03
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,408
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28555554
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Samunderthelights/pseuds/Samunderthelights
Summary: I am not quite sure how it all began. Perhaps it was when we first met up, when he agreed to let me explain everything that had happened. When he hadn’t interrupted, but he had sat listening to me for the longest time, as I had told him all about the pressure that was put on me. When I tried to explain how scared I had been. What a coward I truly was.When, after I had told him everything, he had given me a hug, and told me how sorry he was.
Relationships: Draco Malfoy/Harry Potter
Series: Drarropoly : 2020 [16]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2023337
Comments: 6
Kudos: 10
Collections: Drarropoly '20: Founders Edition





	Another City Goes By In The Night

**Author's Note:**

> Written for [Drarropoly 2020](https://gameofdrarry.tumblr.com/).  
> I landed on Grey Lady, and I chose the prompt 'Include a theme of regret in your story'. I also used the prompts 'Include an owl that brings news: good or bad.', and 'Include lines from Richard Siken's Litany in Which Certain Things are Crossed Out.'
> 
> * The lines in bold are lines from Richard Siken's poem 'Litany in Which Certain Things Are Crossed Out'

I am not quite sure how it all began. Perhaps it was when we first met up, when he agreed to let me explain everything that had happened. When he hadn’t interrupted, but he had sat listening to me for the longest time, as I had told him all about the pressure that was put on me. When I tried to explain how scared I had been. What a coward I truly was.

When, after I had told him everything, he had given me a hug, and told me how sorry he was.

I was not expecting forgiveness, and I was most certainly not expecting him to hug me. But this warm, kind-hearted gesture had brought tears to my eyes, and I had left the coffeeshop that day with a new feeling inside of me.

Perhaps that’s when it began. Although back then I had no idea what it would eventually become. After that day, I was simply hoping to see him again, to perhaps even become his friend.

After meeting up over the next few months, he invited me to come along to a New Year’s party. I didn’t think too much of it. He would probably meet with his friends there, and forget all about me as soon as we’d be there. But I accepted the invitation, and he did not leave my side all night. We spent the night chatting, not about our past, not about the war, or about our pain. This felt different. It felt like we were trying to get to know each other, like he wanted to get to know me, as much as I wanted to get to know him.

There was even some flirting going on between us, but of course I blamed the drinks for that. Surely Harry Potter would not be flirting for me, if it hadn’t been for the slightly dubious-looking cocktails.

But looking back, we weren’t drunk. Maybe a little tipsy, but not drunk. Our outrageous laughter, the flirting, him moving closer and closer until there was no space left between us, was not caused by the cocktails. That was all us.

When everyone was downstairs, counting down to midnight, me and him were upstairs. There were nervous kisses, **clumsy hands in a dark room**. It felt unfamiliar, yet something about it simply falling into place. No words needed.

From then on, we met up two, three times a week. We never discussed what had happened, yet it kept happening. Every meeting we would end up at his flat, we would claw at each other, grabbing onto each other as though we were about to slip out of reach if we didn’t. We would spend hours, hidden away in our own little world. In a state of pure bliss. It felt like this was the good that had come out of the bad, the thing we deserved after all that we had survived. Perhaps the thing we needed. We were happy in each other’s arms. It made us forget. **What more do you want?**

For a few months it was enough. It felt like happiness, just the two of us like that. But you start wanting for more. **You want a better story. Who wouldn’t?** It started to feel like a secret, rather than something exciting. I started wondering whether he was ashamed of it. Of me.

He never said anything of the sort, but whenever we were at a party together, he seemed different. There were no kisses, not until we got back home. No more flirting. We were friends.

Looking back now, I think it was all in my head. I was scared, worried about the fact that we had never discussed what we were doing. There were no ‘I love you’s’, no ‘this is what this means to me’. It just happened. I wanted more than to be his secret, but I never told him. Not realising that I was already more than his secret. We were dating, but I never saw it. Not until it was too late.

When I finally brought myself to tell him how I felt, he didn’t understand. He looked hurt. He did not hear me out as he had done before. He simply took it as an accusation, and told me to go home.

We did not speak for weeks after that. No more late-night kisses, no more finding my true self in his arms.

I would lie in bed, too numb to face the world. Had I truly been so wrong? I had only said that I deserved more than to be a secret. But then, had I been a secret? He had invited me to come along to parties, to dinners. I had always been there, right by his side. But it had always felt like it wasn’t enough. That was on me though, not on him.

I was wrong, and I knew it. I had messed up, and it left me unable to get up and live my life. I got fired, friends would come by and get ignored. I lost them too. **Here is the repeated image of the lover destroyed.**

It wasn’t until my mother came by one afternoon to tell me off, that I had truly broken down. I told her everything, not holding back a single feeling. Not a single one of my regrets. I had never spoken to her about Harry, but she listened, and she held me until I had stopped shaking. Until I felt like that big weight had finally been lifted off my chest.

She told me to go talk to him. Explain it to him. I’m sure he will understand. She had made it sound so simple. Of course I had considered this before, but I had been too ashamed. Too scared to be faced with rejection, perhaps.

But my mother could tell that I was hurting. That this was not just a crush, not some ‘young love’ kind of emotions. This was love, and she wasn’t going to let me let it go to waste.

But by the time I had gotten myself out of bed, showered and dressed to go see him, an owl arrived.

I knew it, the moment I saw Harry’s handwriting, what the note was going to say. I had known it from the moment I had seen Ginny flirt with him. When he had rejected her, because I was there by his side.

I suppose that once I was out of the picture, he no longer had a reason to reject her advances. It had only been weeks since I had last seen him, weeks since they must have been together. But the letter was an apology. A goodbye. An announcement of their engagement.

* * *

For ten years I managed to avoid him. I had heard the stories about the wedding, the cheating, the divorce. It had made me want to reach out and ask him how he was doing. But what would be the point? We were never friends. He had people like Ron and Hermione to talk to. He did not need me.

It did not feel like it had been so long when we finally ran into each other again. It felt like it had been weeks, maybe months. He hadn’t changed much. Perhaps there were some lines on his face now, a few grey hairs here and there. But he still had the same smile, still that sparkle in his eye as he pulled me into his arms. No ‘hello’, no ‘I’m sorry’, no nothing. Just a warm hug, which is how it had all started in the first place, all those years ago.

I knew that we would have to talk about things sooner or later, but those first weeks of being back together were everything I had ever wanted. So I kept my words to myself. My worries and my fears. But my happiness, and that feeling of having finally come home again too.

I watched him leave, time and time again, that big smile on his face. Washing away any memory of the years we had been apart. It was like they had never happened. Yet the minute he was gone, I was left feeling as broken as I had been for those long years. Nothing had changed, things had not gotten better. So why would it end any different?

I could feel myself starting to pull away from him. From his kisses. His embraces. I was scared to get hurt again, to one day tell him how I was feeling, and scare him off again. As long as I kept quiet, I could keep him with me, and we would be happy.

This is what I told myself. What I tried to make myself believe.

Deep down I knew this would never work. Not if I did not speak to him. So I asked him to come home with me to have dinner with my parents. It felt like such a big step, and looking back it was not the step we should have taken at that time. There should have been other conversations first, things we should have discussed. But I figured he would understand what I was trying to say, if I brought him home with me. If I made him sit through a family dinner. As my plus one. My partner.

Harry had always been oblivious. His head up in the clouds, unable to see things that were right there in front of him. Perhaps that is why he laughed when I had once casually mentioned how I had always fancied him back at Hogwarts. He had never seen it, not because I was trying my best to hide it, but because he did not care. He did not want to know.

I should have known better than to think that bringing him home to my parents would be enough. It broke me, when I tried to take his hand as we were waiting on the train, and he pulled away from me. **We were inside the train car when I started to cry.** I did not mean to let it out like that, especially not in front of strangers. But I could not keep it in any longer. I told him I loved him, and I wished he would leave me alone. It hurt too much to be with him, knowing that he did not care about me.

I was hurt, and I should not have said those things. Of course I knew he cared. Perhaps he did not love me in the way I loved him. But I could tell he cared, I felt it in the way he kissed me. The way he would hold me, gently touching my skin. I knew it from the way he whispered sweet nothings into my ear, on the few times we would spend the night together. In those moments where he thought I was asleep, and he allowed himself to be vulnerable.

I expected him to leave me after the things I had told him, but this time he would not be scared off. This time he took me into his arms and he kissed me. He told me he loved me, the words feeling so light as they came out of his mouth, that it was obvious that he did not even realise that he had not said these words to me before.

That night I dared to ask him the big question. What is this? There was hesitation as he told me another ‘I love you’, as he told me that this meant a lot to him. But he was scared after what had happened first time around, and after his divorce it felt like a jinx to put a label on what we had. So we didn’t.

But things did change after that. We started going out on actual dates. He would grab my hand and not let go. There were public kisses. Too many, perhaps. But it made me feel safe, reassured. He did not care about the past, and he was not ashamed of me. He loved me.

Those were the happiest months of my life. But like so many things, it could not last.

* * *

I suppose it started long before either of us noticed anything. The first thing I noticed was him wanting to stay home. Not because he wanted us to hide from the world, but because he was simply too tired to go out and do something. He would spend the afternoon curled up in bed, the covers pulled up to his chin, struggling to keep his eyes open. Other days he would lie in my arms, and sleep there for hours.

I didn’t think anything of it. He worked a lot, and we were getting on in years, so it made sense for him to be tired. I was tired too. We never discussed it, or got worried about it. Or if he did worry, he never said so.

It wasn’t until he collapsed one morning, hitting his head on the bedside table, that I began to worry about him. The wound on his head was nothing a simple _Episkey_ could not fix, but something about the dazed out look in his eyes made me think that there was more this than just a little dizzy spell. I begged him to get himself checked out, but he shrugged it off. It was just that he had been drinking the night before. He took a wrong step. He was tired.

I even got angry with him, because these dizzy spells seemed to be happening an awful lot. I knew I could not put him over my shoulder and make him go see a doctor though. But looking back, perhaps that is exactly what I should have done.

We still tried to go see his friends, and there were a few trips here and there. Some candlelit dinners, where for a moment he seemed like his old self. But I could hear the whispers, I could see the worried looks when his friends saw him. His skin was starting to lose its colour, his eyes not as bright as they had once been. They only seemed to sparkle once in a blue moon. Still he tried to convince me that he was alright. The headaches and dizziness were nothing to worry about. He just needed some rest, and then he’d be right as rain. I’m not sure whether he was trying to convince me or himself. But we both knew that it was a lie. That he was far from alright.

By the time he agreed to finally go see a doctor, it was already too late. They gave him a month, maybe two. They could not offer him anything but pain relief. I refused to accept their words, and I spent the next two days in a blur. Angry, not at them, but at the world. At myself. At Harry. I tried every spell, every potion, but we both knew that I was wasting our time. His time.

So he asked me stop. To just lie with him and hold him. He asked me not to cry, not to talk about it. To try and come to terms with it, and not let it make me cold and bitter. He didn’t want his life, or his death, to change me. I should have been there for him, reassuring him that we would find a way to stop this. I should have been there comforting him, yet he was the one telling me that things were going to be alright. He had always been brave, but it wasn’t until then, that I realised just how strong he was. How much _more_ he was than me.

Two months they said, but in the end he only had three more weeks in him. That day Ron and Hermione had come over to see him, to bring by some of his favourite food, to sit with him and tell him about the children. It had felt like the old days, and for just an hour or two, things had been simple. There had been laughter, no worrying about pain. About death. He was laughing, his eyes bright. He did not seem tired, or to be in pain. He was happy.

It wasn’t long after they had left, when I could see the change in him. He grew so much older, and he looked so tired. So empty. I knew that it was happening, even before he reached out and asked me to come lie with him. My body grew cold, but I was not scared. I almost felt at peace, finally. Because I had watched him suffer, and I knew the terrible pain that he was in. I knew that he could take no more of it. That he had put up a fight for as long as he could, but that he had no more fight left in him. So I held him, and I told him I loved him, over and over again. Wanting those words to be the last thing he ever heard. Hoping that he could somehow take them with him.

After that, life became a blur. I don’t remember what happened in the days, or even the hours after he passed away. I only remember flashes. Hermione crying, as she demands I come stay with them. The flowers at the funeral. Ones he would have hated, I’m sure of it. People hugging me, telling me how sorry they are. The dark, empty feeling of returning home. To nothing. To no one.

It took me months to pick my life back up. To try and go out again, to go and see people. But life had lost its shine, its meaning. Every day was a struggle, but I knew I had to keep going. For Harry, people told me. But he was no longer there. He wouldn’t know if I followed after him, would he?

But I knew what he would say to me, how he would tell me off for even having those thoughts. So I kept fighting, and I worked hard. I made sure to keep seeing our friends, to keep talking about him. To keep him with me, in every thing I did. But to not let the pain of missing him break me.

* * *

The thing I regret most, is wasting so many years. Spending ten years apart, just because I was scared and insecure. Ten years that we could have spent together. Perhaps we could have gotten married, maybe we would have had children by now. But we missed out on that life, all because of me. I regret living my life in fear, worrying about things that did not matter. Things that had seemed like such a big deal once upon a time, but which looking back on it, were petty, meaningless nothings. I should have spoken my mind, and told him what I felt. I should have given him my all.

We wasted ten years, and by the time we finally found each other again, time was already running out for us. We had no idea, and I wonder what it would have been like if we had known. Would we have done things differently? Or would we still have spent all those rainy days, hidden away at the flat? Would we have tried to make more memories? Try to make the most of our precious time together?

Looking back, all these years later, I often wonder whether I should have asked him to marry me. If I could do it again, I would propose. But even without that promise, the ceremony and rings, I have often caught myself referring to him as my husband. That life that we missed out on, often appearing to me in my dreams. Our family home, the anniversaries, the children and grandchildren. It gives me hope, even though I know there is none. But these dreams, these moments where I still have him with me, this is what makes me hang on. What makes me want to stay and make the most of things. To make memories, so that when I see him again, I can tell him all about the things I have seen, the things I have done. So we will have a life to look back on. A life that was meant to be ours.

**Author's Note:**

> http://samunderthelights.tumblr.com/


End file.
